Envestnet

Envestnet Makes Strategic Investment in YieldX

Envestnet Makes Strategic Investment in YieldX
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Envestnet, Funding

Investment solutions provider Envestnet announced it has made a strategic investment in fixed income investing platform YieldX this week. Illinois-based Envestnet was the lead investor in YieldX’s most recent, Series A funding round.

The round, which totaled $18 million, brings YieldX’s total funding to $36 million. YieldX will use the money to scale its quant, engineering, and analytics teams and to expand its API suite. Specifically, YieldX aims to further personalize its offerings, add new data and integrations, expand existing ESG customization, and execute its go-to-market strategy.

Through the newly formed partnership, Envestnet will distribute YieldX’s products to its nearly 108,000 advisors and 6,000+ enterprise customers. The tie-up will help Envestnet clients offer their end consumers better fixed-income investment outcomes.

“We are fully vested in enhancing our ecosystem to intelligently connect financial lives, and we believe income and protection solutions are critical to helping make financial wellness a reality,” said Envestnet Chief Strategy Officer Rich Aneser. “Through our strategic partnership with YieldX, and investing to expand its capabilities, we are able to bring more income related solutions to market for helping advisors meet a critical client need.”

Founded in 2019, YieldX offers tools for fintechs, wealth managers, broker dealers, and asset managers. Company Cofounder and CEO Adam Green called the partnership a “powerful way to level the fixed income playing field for Envestnet’s broad network of advisors and end investors with solutions that simplify the traditional complexities of sourcing and trading fixed income assets.”

Envestnet was founded in 1999 and has since made 13 acquisitions, including its most notorious buy, Yodlee, in 2015. The company’s purchase of data aggregation firm Yodlee broadened its offerings from advisor technology and launched it into the world of open finance. Envestnet is a publicly-traded company on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ENV and has a market capitalization of $4.66 billion.

Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash

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Envestnet |Yodlee Forges Data Exchange Agreement with Wells Fargo

Envestnet |Yodlee Forges Data Exchange Agreement with Wells Fargo
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Envestnet, Yodlee

Is this another instance of open banking, American-style?

One of the major topics of discussion at FinovateFall Digital last week was how the open banking phenomenon that is sweeping the globe will manifest itself in the U.S. The consensus was that open banking will not be driven by regulations in the U.S. as it is in many parts of the world. Instead, the ability of U.S. consumers to access third-party financial solutions via their primary banking partner more likely will be driven by consumers themselves. Another key driver will be companies looking to distinguish themselves from rivals by providing better, more diverse solutions from which to choose.

This is very much top of mind as we receive the news that Wells Fargo has entered a data exchange agreement with major financial data aggregation and analytics platform Envestnet | Yodlee. The partnership will enable the bank’s customers to seamlessly and securely share their data with the 1,400 third-party financial apps available on the Envestment | Yodlee Financial Data Aggregation Platform.

The agreement is also a large step for APIs (another major theme at FinovateFall Digital last week). Wells Fargo announced that it will also transition virtually all of its current third-party financial app screen-scraping to API-based data exchange, and added that the partnership with Envestnet | Yodlee represented the bank’s commitment to forge more API-based data exchange agreements with third-parties going forward.

“As we help customers navigate these uncertain times, we want to enable them to seamlessly connect with and use third-party apps that help them manage their finances and do so in as secure a way as possible,” Wells Fargo Strategy, Digital, and Innovation Group SVP Ben Soccorsy said. “Wells Fargo’s agreement with Envestnet | Yodlee does just that. In the future, our customers will be able to share their financial information with Envestnet | Yodlee-supported apps with enhanced ease, security, and control.”

Wells Fargo customers will be able to access third-party services via the bank’s Control Tower digital experience, which sits inside Wells Fargo’s banking app and is also available online. Control Tower enables both consumer and small business banking customers to manage their finances more efficiently, providing a single, unified view of their accounts with Wells Fargo. Importantly, customers will not only be able to turn the data sharing option on and off, they also will be able to designate the specific data they wish to share with third parties.

“API-based connectivity in the United States is leading to an increasingly connected financial ecosystem, spearheaded by the partnerships like the one we now have with Wells Fargo,” SVP of Data Access & Management at Envestnet | Yodlee Chad A. Wiechers said.

With more than 27 million users around the world, Envestnet | Yodlee demonstrated its Insight Solutions at FinovateFall Digital last week. The new offering enables financial services providers to build and scale hyper-personalized financial wellness experiences for their customers. Long-time Finovate alum Yodlee was acquired by Envestnet five years ago for $660 million. Envestnet was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California.

Photo by Stephanie Pombo from Pexels

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Power to the Personalization: Envestnet | Yodlee Launches Insight Solutions

Power to the Personalization: Envestnet | Yodlee Launches Insight Solutions
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Envestnet, Yodlee

The latest offering from Envestnet | Yodlee enables financial service providers to combine actionable insights, peer benchmarking, and personalized views to build digital financial experiences that better serve and engage their customers across channels. Insight Solutions, unveiled today, provides a set of new APIs that will help companies leverage data to improve the quality of their virtual financial assistance offerings.

“Hyper-personalization is the new baseline for success, and financial institutions and FinTechs who have a more advanced understanding of consumers and tailor their offerings accordingly will have a strategic and competitive advantage,” Envestnet | Yodlee SVP of Product Brandon Rembe said. “Through our Insights Solutions, financial service providers will have access to meaningful consumer insights faster and more affordably than by growing their own data science team.”

Users will be able to take advantage of features like predictive cash flow; spending, credit limit, and refund monitoring and alerts. The new tool will also provide transparency into subscription-based and other recurring expenses. The solution puts the power of machine learning and algorithms to work to provide users with a comprehensive overview of their personal finances, enhancing their ability to save for retirement, build an emergency fund, as well as manage their everyday spending.

With more than 26 million users worldwide, more than 1,300 partners (including 16 of the top 20 U.S. banks), and 50+ patents, Envestnet | Yodlee offers data aggregation and analytics technology solutions that support financial wellness and sound wealth management. Envestnet acquired Yodlee, one of Finovate’s oldest alums and a multiple-time Best of Show winner, in 2015 in a deal valued at $660 million.

Envestnet | Yodlee began this year with the acquisition of financial data aggregation and analytics platform, FinBit.io. This month, the company issued a report looking at income and spending trends during the COVID-19 crisis. In the form of an eBook, the report looks at how retailers in different industries – from restaurants and transportation to barbershops and gaming – were impacted by consumer behavior shifts due to the economic effects of quarantines, lockdowns, and other efforts to fight the pandemic.

Barrons featured Envestnet co-founder and current CEO Bill Crager in an interview last month. Crager took the helm at the company after the tragic death of previous Envestnet CEO Jud Bergman in a 2019 automobile accident. Crager discussed the personal and professional challenges of the succession, as well as plans for 2019 acquisition MoneyGuide, and the company’s strategy for serving its clients during the global pandemic.

Envestnet | Yodlee is a publicly traded company – ENV on the New York Stock Exchange – and has a market capitalization of $4.4 billion.

Photo by João Jesus from Pexels

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Russia Gets a New Tech Billionaire as U.K. Fintechs Get Funded

Russia Gets a New Tech Billionaire as U.K. Fintechs Get Funded
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Azimo, Envestnet, FinBit.io, Finovate Global, MasterCard, Ripple, Yodlee

Russia has a new tech billionaire. The $500 million raised by financial platform Revolut this week not only establishes the U.K.-based business as the country’s most valuable fintech. It also makes its founder and CEO, Moscow-born Nikolay Storonsky, the latest fintech billionaire to come from the Russian Republic.

The investment was led by Technology Crossover Ventures – a U.S. firm – and takes Revolut’s total capital to $836 million. Revolut now sports a valuation of $5.5 billion.

Storonsky’s net worth figure – on paper, at least – is based on a Forbes report from last February in which he noted that his stake in Revolut was being diluted to 30%.

As part of this big week for U.K. fintechs, SME lender iwoca picked up $109 million funding and expansion into Germany. B-Social, a social payments app based in London, raised $10 million ahead of its transformation into a fully-licensed challenger bank later this year. And Azimo partnered with fellow Finovate alum Ripple to facilitate cross-border payments to the Philippines.

This week on Finovate.com, we featured a profile of Innovate Israel founder and CEO Itai Green and his thoughts on open innovation and collaboration between corporates and startups. We also highlighted Finovate newcomer Sonect, a Swiss company that demonstrated its Best of Show winning virtual cash network at FinovateEurope earlier this month.

Here is our weekly look at fintech around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian fintech PhoneParLoan announces new investment from accelerator MOX. The amount of the funding was not disclosed.
  • Bengaluru-based digital billpay company XPay Life goes live in India.
  • Envestnet | Yodlee acquires Indian data aggregator FinBit.io.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • AlphaCredit, a Mexico City-based fintech, raises $125 million in round led by the SoftBank Innovation Fund.
  • Mexico issues its first license – to NVIO Pagos Mexico – under its new fintech law.
  • U.S. Bancorp’s merchant acquirer subsidiary, Elavon, sells its Mexican operations to banking group Santander.

Asia-Pacific

  • Azimo taps Ripple for cross-border payments to the Philippines.
  • Philippines-based Tonik Financial raises $6 million ahead of the launch of its new digital offering.
  • Malaysia’s biggest telecom, Axiata Group, is the latest company in the country to announce plans to pursue a digital banking license.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South Africa’s Jumo raises $55 million in combined debt and equity funding.
  • Nigeria’s The Nation looks at how fintech empowers startups.
  • Kenyan B2B e-commerce platform Sokowatch locks in $14 million Series A funding.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Mastercard expands its partnership with Rakuten Viber to bring P2P payments to Romania.
  • A new $500 million funding round for Revolut makes the company’s founder and CEO Nikolay Storonsky Russia’s latest tech billionaire.
  • Apple Pay goes live in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Kashat, an Egyptian mobile app that offers short-term loans of up to $95 to the underbanked, goes live in Cairo and Alexandria.
  • Jordanian SME lending marketplace Liwwa raises $5 million in growth funding.
  • A new agreement between Tencent Holdings and Network International will expand WeChat Pay’s presence in the UAE.

Top image designed by Freepik

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Envestnet | Yodlee Acquires Indian Data Aggregator FinBit.io

Envestnet | Yodlee Acquires Indian Data Aggregator FinBit.io
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Envestnet, FinBit.io, Mergers & Acquisitions, Yodlee
Photo by Yogendra Singh from Pexels

Envestnet | Yodlee has acquired another asset in its strategy to further grow and develop its data aggregation and analytics business.

The company has purchased India-based FinBit.io, a data analytics platform that offers a scoring solution, BankScore, designed to help people who struggle to obtain credit due to a poor or insufficient credit history. Both companies are Finovate alums: Envestnet | Yodlee made its last Finovate appearance at FinovateFall in New York back in September; FinBit.io made its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia last fall in Singapore.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The deal was completed on February 18th.

Envestnet sees the acquisition as accelerating innovation within the company, fueling the ability of the firm to market compliant solutions to new and existing customers in the region. As part of the deal, FinBit.io founder and CEO Prashant Paliwal will lead Yodlee FinSoft, an Envestnet | Yodlee subsidiary focused on the account aggregation business in India and Asia.

Envestnet | Yodlee Chief Executive for Data and Analytics Stuart DePina called India and Asia strategically important to the company, and highlighted the account aggregator ecosystem in India as one of the more vibrant developments in fintech. “We are delighted to empower millions of consumers in India with state-of-the-art Account Aggregator technology and superior user experiences that will allow them to share consented data seamlessly across platforms enabling speedy solutions such as the real-time processing of personal loan applications,” DePina explained.

“Our vision is to empower consumers with the ability to permit the aggregation of their financial data so that holistic analytics can be made available to valuable services like affordable credit, personal finance management, and even accounting,” FinBit.io’s Paliwal said. Paliwal, who founded the Bangalore-based company in 2017, said the acquisition would enable FinBit.io to expand its product portfolio and scale its offerings. Paliwal is a Yodlee veteran, running the company’s APAC fintech business before launching FinBit.io.

Envestnet acquired multiple Finovate Best of Show winning Yodlee in 2015 for $660 million. Founded in 1999, the company has more than 25 million users around the world and 1,200+ financial institution partners including 15 of the top 20 U.S. banks. The publicly-traded firm, ENV on the New York Stock Exchange, has a market capitalization of $4 billion.

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JPMorgan Chase: More Tokens, Fewer Passwords, Better Security

JPMorgan Chase: More Tokens, Fewer Passwords, Better Security
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Envestnet, Plaid, Yodlee
Photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com from Pexels

According to reporting in the Financial Times, JPMorgan Chase is the latest financial institution to pledge a pivot toward tokenization to make it easier and safer for customers to access third party financial solutions. Tokenization enables FIs to securely send only the limited amount of data necessary to complete transactions, and limits the exposure of customer passwords and other sensitive information. The article, by Laura Noonan, highlights a pair of companies – Envestnet |Yodlee and Plaid – and their agreements to use tokenization in their interactions with Chase and other major FIs.

“Our partnership with Chase will allow further consumer choice, reliability, and insight into how and where their data is being used, along with improved overall financial well-being,” Envestnet | Yodlee CEO Stuart DePina said when his company’s deal was announced last December. “As we move toward API-based connectivity in the United States, relationships like the one we have with Chase are laying the groundwork for this reality by giving consumers greater connectivity across their financial accounts, all accomplished through these types of secure and protected channels.”

The move also represents Chase’s most recent strike against screen scraping, with the FI has long opposed out of concerns that the practice was exploitative of customer data. Noonan’s article notes JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon who decried the way “many third parties sell or trade information in a way customers may not understand, and the third parties, quite often, are doing it for their own economic benefit – not for the customer’s” in a shareholder letter in 2016.

On Finovate.com

  • The CA Consumer Privacy Act Went into Effect While You Were on Vacation – If you’re unfamiliar with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), you might want to stop catching up on email you missed over the holiday and focus on this new regulation. Here are a few highlights of California’s new law, which went into effect yesterday.
  • Wall Street to Exiting Fintechs: Show Us the Profits – What does the fintech landscape look like for startups in 2020? Among all the forecasts and predictions we’ve been reading and re-reading, is reporting from the Wall Street Journal that suggests that fintech startups seeking successful exits may face tougher challenges in 2020 than in 2019.
  • B-North Lands $2.6 Million Ahead of Launch – E.U.-based alternative lending company B-North announced this week it landed $2.6 million (£2 million) in new funding. The investment comes as part of crowdfunding efforts via Crowdcube and Growthfunders.
  • Finovate Global: Solaris Bank to Secure CryptoCurrencies; Brazilian Fintechs Announce New Funding

Alumni in the News

  • Mastercard snaps up RiskRecon.
  • Lendio recognized as one of the best places to work by Glassdoor.
  • iProov CEO Andrew Bud earns Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) status from Queen Elizabeth as part of his work in driving technology innovation in the U.K.
  • Standard Chartered appoints Rene Keller as CIO of CCIB.
  • Ayondo chairman resigns.

If you are a Finovate alum, please send us your news and announcements by Friday noon, Pacific Time, in order to be featured in our weekly Alumni in the News roundup.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Artivest, DriveWealth, Envestnet, Finastra, PaySend, Revolut, RightCapital, Temenos, Tink, Yodlee

On Finovate.com

  • RightCapital Inks Strategic Partnership with Financial Advisor Association

Around the web

  • Envestnet | Yodlee forges data sharing agreement with JP Morgan Chase.
  • Temenos partners with CWB Financial Group.
  • DriveWealth teams up with SBI Thai Online Securities, bringing access to U.S. stocks to Thai investors.
  • Open banking platform Tink announces expansion to Portugal and Italy.
  • New partnership with Smart Pension will enable Revolut to offer its business customers the ability to automate monthly pension contributions.
  • Artivest announces new partnership with Wellington Management.
  • Paysend introduces worldwide money transfers to Uzbekistan.
  • Jumio takes home top honors in the “Software Security Enterprise Product of the Year” category at the 2019 Best in Biz Awards.
  • Finastra inks deal with Pancreta Bank of Greece to deploy its Fusion Risk solution to help automate regulatory reporting.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Envestnet Adds Yodlee FinApps to MoneyGuide’s MyBlocks

Envestnet Adds Yodlee FinApps to MoneyGuide’s MyBlocks
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Envestnet, Yodlee

Envestnet announced today that it is adding five Yodlee FinApps to MoneyGuide’s MyBlocks client-engagement tool. This will give financial advisors new resources to improve customer engagement as well as their customer’s financial wellness.

An interactive, digital experience, MyBlocks helps advisors engage clients on topics such as social security and retirement compatibility by breaking them into “bite-sized blocks” that are easier to understand, navigate, and manage. By adding Yodlee Finapps, advisors will also be able to offer clients a holistic view of their assets, insurance, and other financial information, as well. “Get clients engaged faster and keep them engaged,” Envestnet | MoneyGuide president Tony Leal said. “That’s the foundation of MyBlocks.”

The new five blocks include:

  • AI Fintech: AI-driven virtual assistant that measures financial health
  • Cash Flow Analysis: financial tracker that forecasts future expenses and income
  • Investment Holdings: portfolio viewer with ability to examine sectors and individual holdings
  • NetWorth Summary: aggregated, continually-updated snapshot of assets and liabilities
  • OK to Spend: cash flow optimizer that provides transparency on future income and expenses

This week’s announcement furthers the initial integration between MyBlocks and Yodlee FinApps announced over the summer. The new blocks are currently available to MoneyGuide customers who are subscribers to MyBlocks and have licensed Yodlee data aggregation. The offering is expected to be extended to all registered investment advisors using the Envestnet | Tamarac platform in 2020.

“This is another step in our journey to create a unified advice network that allows advisors and their clients to build better financial futures,” Envestnet interim CEO Bill Crager said.

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Envestnet| Yodlee demonstrated its latest financial wellness data offering at FinovateFall in September. The new app enables users to structure their financial data in repositories called “boards” that leverage notifications, alerts, and insights to make it easier for users to manage their finances. Among other recent offerings from the company are its Intelligent APIs, unveiled just weeks ago, which take advantage of data science and machine learning to empower the development of “hyper-personalized” financial solutions.

Envestnet has more than 99,000 advisors and 4,100+ companies using its data aggregation and digital analytics platform and services. The company’s customers include 17 of the 20 largest U.S. banks, 43 of the 50 largest wealth management and brokerage firms, and 500+ of the largest Registered Investment Advisers. Recent partnerships with Envestnet include working with Voya Financial over the summer to help the firm launch a hybrid roboadvisory solution, and announcing a $500 million acquisition of PIEtech – the mother company of MoneyGuide – this spring.

Envestnet acquired multiple-time, Finovate Best of Show winner Yodlee in 2015 for $660 million. The company is publicly-traded on the NYSE under the ticker ENV, and has a market capitalization of $3 billion.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Envestnet, Finastra, Finicity, Insuritas, nCino, Yodlee

On Finovate.com

  • Finicity’s AssetReady Reports Accelerate the Prequal Process.
  • Envestnet Adds Yodlee FinApps to MoneyGuide’s MyBlocks.

Around the web

  • PyraMax Bank launches PyraMax Insurance Services leveraging Insuritas’ digital insurance platform.
  • Finastra’s new Fusion Treasury Essential helps small banks with no dedicated treasury system automate their treasury function.
  • nCino appoints David Rudow as Chief Financial Officer.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: BlueVine, Envestnet, Equifax, Insuritas, Jack Henry, MX, myGini, Paper.id, Personal Capital, Salt Edge, Swaper, Tink, Xero, Yodlee

On Finovate.com

  • Paper.id lands funding to power digital invoicing for SMEs in Indonesia.

Around the web

  • BlueVine launches BlueVine Business Banking.
  • Salt Edge unveils Salt Edge Authenticator for strong customer authentication and dynamic linking.
  • Jack Henry’s PayCenter helps first 15 bank clients join RTP network.
  • AccountScore and Equifax debut credit risk index to help lenders better understand loan applicants.
  • Personal Capital celebrates 10 years in wealthtech with a brand refresh.
  • MX ships new tool to help consumers manage and cancel recurring subscriptions.
  • Swaper’s three years milestones: 2800 investors have funded over 7 million Euros in loans.
  • Envestnet | Yodlee releases Intelligent APIs to further personalize financial wellness tools.
  • myGini completes PCI Level 1 compliance audit.
  • FinTech Global recognizes Insuritas as InsurTech 100 Member.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ClickSWITCH, Envestnet, Fiserv, Infosys, MasterCard, Revolut

On Finovate

  • ClickSWITCH to Power Digital Direct Deposit Switch for Current.
  • Standard Bank Leverages Mobile Teller Tech from Infosys Finacle.
  • Fiserv to Enhance Risk Management for Pan-American Life.

Around the web

  • New integration between Revolut and TrueLayer brings Open Banking to money management app Emma.
  • Via its Mastercard Send push payments solution, Mastercard and Evolve Bank & Trust team up to back Branch and similar companies to ensure prompt payment for gig workers.
  • Envestnet helps Voya Financial launch hybrid roboadvisory offering.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: AlphaPoint, Envestnet, Fenergo, GreatHorn, Klarna, Kony, Micronotes, NIIT Technologies, Onfido, Refundo, SecureKey

On Finovate.com

  • Refundo to Return Tax Refunds in Bitcoin.
  • Klarna Brings its Alt Payment Options to Brick and Mortar Retail Shoppers.

Around the web

  • Kony and Micronotes team up to bring Micronotes’ personalized conversation solution to banks using Kony DBX.
  • SecureKey’s Verified.Me identity verification solution is now available for consumers of CIBC, Desjardins, RBC, Scotiabank and TD across Canada.
  • Fenergo working with Bahrain’s Electronic Network for Financial Transactions to design and implement a KYC solution that incorporates blockchain technology.
  • NIIT Technologies’ AdvantageGo launches Underwriting, a solution that consolidates and provides all underwriting functions into a single platform.
  • GreatHorn awarded U.S. patent for new email impersonation detection method.
  • Onfido, Alphapoint earn spots in the inaugural cohort of cross-border regulatory sandbox, Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN).
  • Envestnet unveils new suite of analytical tools for financial advisors, Envestnet Advisor Analytics.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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